The Mime Order

November 3, 2014
This intricate second installment in Shannon’s ambitious seven-book series, after 2013’s The Bone Season, follows dreamwalker Paige Mahoney, a peculiarly opaque protagonist, after her daring escape from the penal colony of Sheol I. Now on the run from Scion, the organization that controls the London of 2059, Paige’s only hope for survival is to return to the Unnatural Assembly, those who control the community of clairvoyants who rule London’s underground. In order to destroy Scion and alert her fellow voyants to the existence of the mysterious, often malevolent Rephaim, she decides to seize control of the Assembly and become the new Underqueen of the syndicate. To do that, she’ll have to truly master her powers, avoid relentless authorities and occasional hit men, and possibly betray those closest to her. Though the story starts slowly, it quickly picks up speed, racing toward broadly telegraphed plot points in unexpected ways. Shannon’s world-building is original and intriguing, especially the complex, almost mythic voyant underground. However, this installment does rely heavily on knowledge of the previous one. Agent: David Godwin, David Godwin Associates.

November 15, 2014
Paige Mahoney, the Pale Dreamer of The Bone Season (2013), returns in this second volume of a projected seven-volume fantasy/science-fiction epic. The novel begins with Paige's escape to London as she eludes pursuers of all stripes and becomes public enemy No. 1. On the plus side, she's with a gang of clairvoyants, and her cohort is headed by Jaxon Hall, one of the mime-lords of the title. (Mime-lords and mime-queens are leaders of clairvoyant gangs who form a subgroup within the various cohorts.) London becomes the main setting of the novel, and it assumes various guises, some comforting but most harrowing. Cohorts inhabit spaces that seem vaguely familiar (Covent Garden, Camden Town, Soho) yet remain mysterious and sinister. Readers of the first volume might also remember the emphasis on a specialized and arcane vocabulary applicable to the alternative universe the author creates. The glossary is again a welcome necessity. The prime mover of action here is Paige's relentless pursuit by Scion, a governmental organization that sees her as a threat to its status and power. Eventually Paige meets up again with Arcturus Mesarthim, her Warden and a Rephaite-a physically immortal being. He has some advice for her-to be wary and to "manipulate [her] mime-lord...as he has spent his life manipulating others"-good advice for a world that is arcane, complex, multilayered and at times almost incomprehensible. Shannon's prose style is serviceable, but her legion of fans will once again be here for the propulsive plot rather than lyricism.

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November 15, 2014

Paige Mahoney, aka the Pale Dreamer and recent escapee of the penal colony Sheol I, is back in her beloved London, but her situation is far from ideal. Branded as Scion's most wanted, she is forced to go back to Jaxon Hall, her former mime lord, and resume her life as his mollisher so the syndicate will protect her from Scion. But when syndicate Underlord Haymarket Hector and his entire gang are brutally murdered, both Paige and Jaxon see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity--Jaxon wants to be the new Underlord, and Paige thinks she can finally turn the self-serving, corrupt syndicate toward her cause of bringing down Scion. What Paige doesn't know is that, just as in Sheol I, things in the syndicate are not at all what they seem, and when Warden and his Rephaite allies return, Paige once again finds herself the leader in a fight to change, and quite possibly save, the world. VERDICT Full of the action, turns, and surprising revelations that readers have come to expect from Shannon, this new installment ends on a wholly unexpected twist. [See Prepub Alert, 4/21/14.]--Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola

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